The9

According to the Oldham fan who posted on here Stephens is a Steven Gerrard type, so he'd be more likely to replace Chaplow not Hammond. I wouldn't be surprised to see him rotated in to keep the yellow cards to a minimum before the second weekend of April when the suspension deadline for 10 yellows passes, and by then we'll have seen enough of him to know whether he's a starter or stays as cover. Chaplow will definitely react well, he looks like he likes a challenge...

It was absolutely p1ssing with rain that day, so the waterproofing qualities of the dubbin which kept the boots from absorbing the water also made the boot surface more slippery than anticipated. I've been in that position enough times to know what the difference was and it hasn't happened since. Mind you, I don't run any more, so I don't get put through as much as I used to...

But he's not black...?

Seems rather silly to put dubbin on plastic boots, or rubberised cushioning or power-areas. Personally I always bought predominantly leather, and always black, boots, but I stopped putting dubbin on them in 2003 when I was 1 on 1 with the keeper in the rain in the Gwent County Cup Final. I went to chip him and felt the ball skid off the front of my boot enough to put it wide. Since then I've always wanted as much friction as I could get from the surface area of the leather, strictly water-cleaned only. We still won by the way, but that miss meant we went to extra time AND I only set up the winner.

Having been back there for the first time in about 3 years on Saturday... absolutely. The Millennium Stadium is a much better stadium for fans' proximity to the action as there's no massive area between the pitch and the stands, you don't get a vast swathe of empty corporate boxes all the time, the transport links are about as bad as Wembley (the queue outside the train station for up to 2 hours afterwards is a tad annoying) but with Cardiff at least you have an option to disappear off around the city to get something decent to eat or an un-rammed pub for a beer, rather than have to pile into a Wembley kebab shop in lieu of anywhere decent. Both have rubbish toilet facilities, I walked 3 blocks away to get to a loo with a short queue on Saturday, but then at the JPT Final we were borrowing a mate's crutches to use the disabled toilet, the wait was so long. Wembley's still Wembley of course, but it's always been popular for its status not its facilities.

New Brighton Tower, 1898-1901 : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_former_Football_League_clubs In the Conference Newport County, Scarborough, Halifax Town and Chester City have all gone bankrupt within a season or two of relegation from the League in the last 25 years, the circumstances without fail being that the team got very bad due to financial problems before the finances completely caved in - the only difference with Aldershot and Maidstone was that their finances caved in whilst the team was still in the league. It can happen, and the League has absolutely no control over it at all.

Lallana has been a class apart in practically every match. Fonte's been very solid but not as impressive as last season and Chamberlain is only at Lallana's level about one game in six at the moment. Butterfield has impressed in the last couple of months too.

Assuming we don't catch Brighton, second place is my preference. As I can't actually attend the Play-Off Final in Manchester, I don't want to miss it, even if we're there. If I had been able to attend the Play Off Final I'd STILL want 2nd.

Come the end of the season I'd rather have the 5 points, we'd look pretty stupid only trying to play 43 games. Right now I'd take having the chance to get 9, 2 wins or 1 win and 2 draws looks eminently feasible.

I think we'd be in almost exactly the same position.

I'd love to know where the Opta stats for every player's pass completion in League One are. Interesting to see that someone has the completely opposite opinion to me on where our attacks are failing in open play. Clue : he's about 6'3" and mostly scores from dead balls.

That's pretty bloody annoying, I was in South Wales on Friday afternoon, could have gone to see that...

Interesting input given that your lot started timewasting within the first 10 minutes at St Mary's. What does that tell you ?

I went, they got murdered and only managed two passes in a row when 3-0 down and Stoke had stopped bothering.

As far as I can tell, because they don't have a midweek match this week he's only got to pitch up with Scotland at some point prior to 48 hours before the match, and as long as Scotland are fine with him playing on Friday then no-one else can do anything about it. It's only the national association which can take umbrage with the club and prevent the player from representing his club in the lead up to the international, and Scotland are not currently attempting to do that. Pretty sure there's a precedent with Michael Essien / Chelsea / Ghana if you Google...

That's just patently not true. And as a striker I'd be VERY surprised if his pass completion rate (the only verifiable indicator of passing accuracy) was better than everyone else's in ANY match, never mind consistently. All I can tell you from available stats is that Lambert has more shots than anyone else : http://www.football-league.co.uk/page/DivisionalShooting/0,,10794~201025,00.html For a bloke who's meant to be so great at passing he doesn't appear very highly on the assist table either... Shame there's no chalkboard for Saints v Man U...

I agree that that's the point of a target man (though you can do that AND be more mobile), what I'm saying is that he's not been particularly great at it this season - his passing has been poor all season and he doesn't get on the end of enough crosses, especially not low ones. What I'm saying is that I think we'd be more of a threat with a more mobile sole striker (Barnard) and a creator in the hole (Guly, maybe Lallana). Lambert, as you say, is no support striker. Anyway, we've signed a CM now, so it's a moot point, as we don't necessarily have to reorganise our line up to accommodate a potential shortage of central midfielders.

I'm assuming it's because he thinks money is good no matter what ? I can't see any other arguments against safe standing other than the cost of implementation - and even that could be offset by being able to get more people into the ground than an all-seater at (inevitably) the same price - or worse, a "more expensive limited edition" price.

Only if the Wolves fans in question had 1) Not noticed we were in already administration at the time, as opposed to "possibly being in financial trouble" like Oldham are... 2) Thought they were still in the same league as us, rather than already promoted to the Prem... 3) Thought we were somehow in a promotion battle (like we are now), rather than just being relegated from the CCC... 4) Not seen him play (or at least not noticed him on the numerous occasions he started for us against them, which is rather more likely). And I'm not sure if you're saying Surman was good - but he was crap for Wolves; or crap - but he was good for Norwich ?

Actually having reverted to referring to "controlling the controllables" in my team's last match (literally) the other week, I think I've exhausted my management speak for the year. Plus I'm not going to do the management thing in this match for as long as it costs money, and as it's ALWAYS going to cost money I'll probably stick to spectating, which I didn't even manage to do last year. As far as Spades goes, he's been one of our best players this season, me having signed him on the basis of last year's Forum match reports and one day of 7-a-side matches. It was a no-brainer though.

As posted on the Plymouth reschedule thread t'other day : Article 1 Principles 1. Clubs are obliged to release their registered players to the representative teams of the country for which the player is eligible to play on the basis of his nationality if they are called up by the association concerned. Any agreement between a player and a club to the contrary is prohibited. 2. The release of players under the terms of paragraph 1 of this article is mandatory for matches on dates listed in the coordinated international match calendar and for all matches for which a duty to release players exists on the basis of a special decision by the FIFA Executive Committee. 3. It is not compulsory to release players for matches scheduled on dates not listed in the coordinated international match calendar. 4. Players must also be released for the period of preparation before the match, which is laid down as follows: a) friendly matches: 48 hours; b) qualifying matches for an international tournament: four days (including the day of the match). The release period shall be extended to fi ve days if the match concerned is held in a different confederation to the one in which the player’s club is registered; c) qualifying matches for an international tournament that are staged on a date reserved for friendly matches: 48 hours; d) friendly matches that are staged on a date reserved for qualifying matches for an international tournament: 48 hours; e) the fi nal competition of an international tournament: 14 days before the fi rst match in the competition. Players shall join the association team no later than 48 hours before kick-off. There's also another bit saying Players complying with a call-up from their association under the terms of this article shall resume duty with their clubs no later than 24 hours after the end of the match for which they were called up. This period shall be extended to 48 hours if the match concerned took place in a different confederation to the one in which the player’s club is registered. Clubs shall be informed in writing of a player’s outbound and return schedule ten days before the match. Associations shall ensure that players are able to return to their clubs on time after the match. Seems pretty clear to me that Mackail-Smith has gone there NOW to comply with the 48 hour rule, and therefore in theory will be able to play on Friday for Peterborough and Sunday for Scotland. There are international qualifiers scheduled this weekend so it's clearly a designated date in the international calendar and the meet up rules definitely apply. The fact that the Peterborough match is on Friday at 7:45pm before the international on Sunday might be relevant as it's not 48 hours before the Scotland game, which is a 2pm kick off on Sunday. I guess if he meets the "meet 48 hours before" criteria by going now (and Scotland don't have another match before Sunday) then if they can geographically get him to the matches they've met the rules. It's a weird situation because usually there's not a possibility of someone playing for club and country in the same weekend with enough time to meet the international requirements, but as Scotland don't have a midweek game they can get away with it.

Booooooooooooo Lungs Out.

I wonder if he likes curly greens ? Or Rescue Rangers ? etc.

I don't think so, but I'm impressed with his level of support for the welsh former Saints left back.

If it says "OAFC" he can just cover up the C and no-one will be any the wiser.